Stello U3: async USB to coax & AES/EBU transport <Impressions updated> - Page 13

Quote:

Originally Posted by BrainFood 

No probs. That said, would be GREAT to do that usb cable-> psu upgrade.

There ya good, my good man: http://www.head-fi.org/t/646363/review-of-the-5v-kingrex-mk2-psu-used-in-usb

Well, I believe I was rather clear about my impressions in this review. All I can say is that the Pardo had to go and the Kingrex stayed

Oh wow, amazing! How come it's not on the english speaking website?

BTW, you can find the 1.63 drivers at http://www.luckit.biz/downloads/Luckit%20WaveIO%20Drivers%20(v1.63.0).rar

The .inf files need to be modified of course, same story as with the 1.43 

It adds the following over 1.61:

Alright! Just did the following:

-unplug the DP1
-uninstall 1.43
-install 1.22
-update firmware
-unplug the DP1
-uninstall 1.22
-install the modded 1.63, et voilà 

There's only one silly option that has to be changed, you definitely wanna force it to "always on" instead of "power saving":

Yep:

Quote:

Originally Posted by leeperry 

You can read about the improvements from 1.22 to 1.43 there. 

The modded 1.63(with default latency settings) work wonderfully here, I'm a happy camper all over again 

Oh yah, and the 1.61 notes make it clear that "driver operates in event-driven mode now" so enabling HPET has become a good idea more than ever IMHO. The next stop is to force HPET to use 0.5ms resolution instead of the default 10ms, but the rabbit hole always goes deeper heh 

All this said, Morricone sounds outstanding(off the remastered CD, not this vinyl sourced youtube lossy encode) with the 1.63 drivers

Well done Sherlock and thanks for the heads-up as I had no idea! Yeah, the 1.63 sound most outstanding to my ears....I kinda doubt that the SQ improvement would be placebo when you can read about the zillion improvements the driver went through(and most importantly the firmware as well), especially now that it is using the Event Timer which is a much tighter clock source 

I've spent many hours listening to the 1.63 drivers and my subjective impressions on the DP1 is that the "watch through the studio cabin window" feeling has drastically increased, so did the 3D imaging(especially the front channel) but the SQ is so much clearer that it's quite a bit more analytic than before and the sweet "magical" sound of the DP1 seems to have suffered in the process? It's far less forgiving than before and it makes small defects in recordings far more audible IMO.......I might roll back to the 1.22 fw + 1.43 drivers just to be sure but I surely enjoy the increased clarity and stereo image layering anyway and you can't blame a transport for sounding too clear I guess huh....gonna have to work on my audio player and find better sounding settings, don't shoot the messenger as they say!

I haven't watched movies yet, but I guess Reclock in bit-perfect 24/192 is gonna kill w/ the new drivers

PS: no J.... word was harmed in this post ^^

PPS: stereo imaging is too amazing in this tune(in FLAC): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADMRpwfPHww

Yep I read about the S1 upgrade on the korean speaking official forum you mentioned earlier and they seem to be adding an extra PSU board of some sort?

Anyway, I've been forced to finetune my crossfeed and EQ settings but today with fresh ears, yes the new drivers indeed seem to allow hearing even further *into* the recordings...most impressive! I used to both love and hate(sometimes simultaneously, sometimes one day and the other) that "sweet" sound of the DP1 that was very forgiving and focused on playing music instead of making tiny defects audible..but the new software is definitely setting the bar a whole notch higher to my ears, centered vocals sound sooo true-to-life that you could almost tell what microphone/preamp/tube combo was used

I've been listening to my DP1 on a daily basis for +1 year so I guess my brain would also need to adjust and I often read that J..... can add musicality when OTOH pretty much eliminating it could make the music (too) analytic and sterile sounding. You can't find progress anyway and there is no such thing as a sound that is too "tight"(which is really how it feels as the sound seems more focused/less blurry and to suffer from a lot less random "time based" distortion). I often heard deep funk lovers stating that pretty much only JB was truly tight as a swiss clock and I gotta say that his music has gotten even more amazing. Too bad a lot of sub-par recordings are barely listenable now, and lossy audio is a huge no-no...time to chase for more HD sounding material I guess but I thoroughly enjoy my new DP1 on steroids fosho.

Hopefully the new software will yield the same astounding effect on the U3

PS: the amazing sounding 13 volumes "Mojo Club - Dancefloor Jazz" serie is really up for it!

I just rolled back the old software and there is no question that the sound is quite different....I'll try the new firmware with the 1.48 drivers in order to know whether it's the drivers or the firmware that are at play here 

I also collected the 1.50, 1.53, 1.55, 1.56 and 1.57 so that should keep me busy for a while heh